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Sunday, August 19, 2007

It was revealed [and confirmed by the National Security Council] this week that the White House will be writing the Iraq War surge report [General David] Petraeus will present to Congress. It was also revealed by a number of major mainstream news outlets that Petraeus will only be reading what the White House wants him to say. On the other hand, FOX News decided what the Bush White House is doing is perfectly within the framework of how a report should be given to Congress. Forget all the times in the past few months, Bush has said we are waiting for General Petraeus' report to Congress. Now it has been learned the Petraeus report will be "ghost written" by speech writers at the White House.

Corcoran goes on to say that Fox News ignored four truck bombs and a U.S. helicopter crash (which killed 5 servicemen) earlier in the week.

Might it be that the spin we are seeing floating to the surface on some blogs in the past month indicates the timed attempts elsewhere of partisan media to influence low public perceptions about the effects of the Bush Administration's troop surge as a lead up to the September report? It would not be the first time that Fox has played White House whip.

In the meantime, we should heed the advice of some 82nd Airborne troops:

The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.